May 2025 – Andrew Careaga

Friday Five: selections from ‘Best Small Fictions 2025’

A sampling from this year’s recently selected stories and prose poems

Alternating Current Press recently announced the selections for the 2025 edition of The Best Small Fictions anthology, and there are some great ones you can read online, right now. Here are five I enjoyed that were published in some literary magazines I try to read regularly.

“At Once,” by Sarah Freligh, published in Ghost Parachute.
“Based on a True Story,” by Epiphany Ferrell, published in the (unfortunately now closed) Witcraft.
“They fired up the laser,” by Timothy C. Goodwin, published in Dishsoap Quarterly.
“Finding the Water to Cry,” by Jacqueline Goyette, published in Stanchion.
“Splinter,” by Didi Wood, published in Fractured Lit.

Have a good weekend.

Let’s have fun with it

Writing should not be drudgery

Sometimes, we writers take ourselves too seriously. We’re so busy writing and revising, polishing our jewels of poetry and prose to a high gloss, obsessively monitoring book sales or social media likes, and fretting over audience reaction — will anyone read it? will it even get accepted? — that we forget to enjoy the exciting, invigorating process of the creative act.

We would do well to heed the guidance of Sgt. Hulka from the comedy Stripes and “lighten up, Francis.”

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Maybe I’m just giving myself a pep talk here. Maybe no on else takes themselves so seriously. Or maybe you’ve got those worrisome thoughts of perfectionism crawling around in the back of your mind like a cluster of spiders (I envision the daddy long legs variety: creepy but ultimately harmless).

Friday Five: writer Kristin Kozlowski

‘Like a lot of writers, I am trying to understand the world around me.’

Today’s Friday Five Q&A features a writer I only recently discovered, Kristin Kozlowski.

It was a serendipitous discovery. I was researching literary magazines to submit to when I stumbled across her quirky and delightful flash fiction piece, “My Neighbor Posts a Sign in His Yard,” in Fish Barrel Review. After that read, I knew I had to check out more of her writings, and the more I read, the more I was curious about what inspires and motivates her. So I reached out to ask if she would be interested in being a part of this feature. Fortunately for all of us, she agreed.

Photograph of writer Kristin Kozlowski — Kristin Kozlowski

New writing in Syncopation Literary Journal

Love the ’80s? Check out my latest music-inspired writing.

The latest issue of Syncopation Literary Journal just dropped, and I’m excited to have contributed two pieces to it. Syncopation is a music-focused litmag, and Volume 4, Issue 2 focuses on the music of the 1980s. As a product of that era — most of my favorite music and musical influences come from the rock, punk, and new wave sounds of the late ’70s and early ’80s — this theme is right in my wheelhouse.

May LitLinks

Some inspiration for writers on archetypes, writing faster/quiet/dangerously, and taking breaks

Welcome to the second edition of LitLinks, a collection of links of potential interest to other writers. Check them out below, or if you prefer, listen to the AI-generated summary here or below.)

Character archetypes can help writers round out their story or novel. Whether you’re looking for inspiration to create a “rogue with a heart of gold” (think Han Solo from the Star Wars franchise) or an outcast (Jay Gatsby or, um, Shrek?), you’re likely to find it among these 77 (yes, 77!) character archetypes compiled by Nathan Baugh over at World Builders.
Danger ahead! Check out this mini masterclass on dangerous writing by Erin Karbuczksy in the Write or Die Mag newsletter.
How to write faster, from Allie at Introspective Ink. No need to write more about this.
Worth repeating: Rene Ostberg‘s essay on the benefits of taking a writing break, via Lit Mag News. (I referenced this one a few blog posts back, but it’s important enough to include again, I think. At least for me, since I’m still in on a writing ~~funk~~ hiatus.)
Quiet writing — the first of four lessons on “crafting stories from everyday moments” by Andrea A. Firth in The Forever Workshop. Be sure to follow that website for the next lessons over the coming weeks.

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